Sunday, November 21, 2004

Hints on Editing Your Own Writing

Exploration Through Example

Brian Marick has an excellent summary of revising your own writing.

Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Schneier on Security: Hacking Faxes

Schneier on Security: Hacking Faxes

Faxes are wide open for attack. I think most people blindly accept FAXen as original documents (even though they aren't) because they simply look like original documents. "Good enough for me", they say. Most of the time, this works, but it's a target which can be broken.

Tuesday, October 26, 2004

Sistine Chapel

Sistine Chapel

I had the opportunity to spend a delightful weekend in Rome with my family. Of course, we endured the queues and were successful in visiting the Vatican Museum. Surely there is no other place on Earth like it.

The biggest surprise to me was the Sistine Chapel. Yes, it is stagering in its beauty. However the biggest surprise was how unsafe it appeared to be. One small door in. One small door out. Despite this, thousands of people squeezed into a very small space indeed with no visible means of emergency exit. A disaster will occur here.

Saturday, October 02, 2004

Microsoft Word Help FAQ. How to control bullets in Microsoft Word

Microsoft Word Help FAQ. How to control bullets in Microsoft Word

And how to save time with outlining http://www.word.mvps.org/FAQs/Formatting/UsingOLView.htm and overall Word help at http://www.shaunakelly.com/word/

Open Source vs. Proprietary for Business Benefit

David Wheeler has written an oustandingly lucent article about Open Source vs. Proprietary software, taking the business and risk viewpoint. He carefully debunks much of the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) with real data and information.
This paper provides quantitative data that, in many cases, using open source software / free software is a reasonable or even superior approach to using their proprietary competition according to various measures. This paper’s goal is to show that you should consider using OSS/FS when acquiring software. This paper examines market share, reliability, performance, scalability, security, and total cost of ownership. It also has sections on non-quantitative issues, unnecessary fears, OSS/FS on the desktop, usage reports, other sites providing related information, and ends with some conclusions. An appendix gives more background information about OSS/FS. You can view this paper at http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html (HTML format). Palm PDA users may wish to use Plucker to view this. A short briefing based on this paper is also available in PDF and Open Office Impress formats (for the latter, use Open Office Impress). Old archived copies and a list of changes are also available.




Sunday, August 29, 2004

The Globe and Mail

The Globe and Mail

Maybe instead of searching for finger-nail clippers, security agents at airports should check vacationing travellers for carring work-related paraphernalia. If found they should confiscate.

I can see it now. instead of those plexi-glas boxes holding oodles of nail clippers, safety razors, etc., we'll have boxes full of mobil phones, laptop computers, PDAs, pens, pencils, paper, ...

Op Ed: How Long Can the Country Stay Scared?

Op Ed: How Long Can the Country Stay Scared?

Worth careful reading and consideration.

Saturday, August 28, 2004

C-SPAN.org: Search Results

C-SPAN.org: Search Results

Short 10-minute interview with John Kerry in 1971 where he talks about throwing away his medals. Interesting he felt that minority veterans were a menace as they were "taught to kill".

Friday, August 27, 2004

NEWS.com.au | Plane crash a terror attack: authorities (August 27, 2004)

NEWS.com.au | Plane crash a terror attack: authorities (August 27, 2004)

It appears as though the dual plane crashes in Russia were caused by explosives.

Security by Obscurity Leads to Safety Risk

Jimmy Breslin writes in Newsday about the diachotomy of security in New York City in preparation for the Republican Convention. While hoards of police check people for hidden finger nail clippers, they cause a real and serious safety risk, which could result in death, by practicing "security by obscurity". Next, I guess, will be to emulate cold-war Moscow where published city maps were just plain wrong so as to confuse invading armies. Golly gee.

"At 75th Street yesterday, behind an empty park bench, were two posts that always held the sign that had been there for years and which stated: "Warning. Do Not Anchor or Dredge, Gas Pipelines Crossing, Continental Gas Pipeline Corp." As an act of homeland security, the sign has been taken down. This meant that nobody would know anymore that the pipeline was right under their feet. The sign at the 175th Street site also has been removed. This is bureaucratic voodoo: You take something everybody knows and say it is a secret."



Sunday, August 22, 2004

Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger

Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger

Bob Scoble writes eloquently about computer security. I especially like his description of how his wife's heirloom jewlery is protected and uses that to make the point about layered security in computing.

I think a large component of the computer security "problem" is that this is really the first time that "normal people" have to contend with and understand security if they wish to be more secure. This is the first time in history that huge numbers of "normal" people have important "assets" that are under continued "attack"--computers on the internet.

Before now, people knew to have, or consider having, locks on their front door. They watch their wallet and handbag when walking through big cities. They lock their car doors when going into the grocery store even if only for a few minutes. Despite this, the vast majority of people hae never been "attacked". Security incidents, even though worried about, just didn't happen (to most people).

"Designed" security, say for heirloom jewelry, was designed by others. While normal people recognise that security exists, understood the need for that security, and even sought it (e.g. for jewelry or cash money) they didn't really need to understand it. They don't know how to establish an understanding of risk and controls. (They haven't read Bruce Schneir's books http://www.rmschneider.com/writing/Schneier_5steps.html).

In today's world, "normal people" are now forced for the first time to really understand security on their internet connected computer. They feel they are under attack. They see evidence they are under attack. But they don't know, and in general are not interested, knowing how to design a security system in defence.

They just want it taken care of, preferably by Microsoft.

Sunday, August 15, 2004

The New York Times > National > Uranium Reactors on Campus Raise Security Concerns

The New York Times > National > Uranium Reactors on Campus Raise Security Concerns

Funny how things change over time. As a student at Purdue in the early 1970's I would often walk across the Mall heading towards the Electrical Engineering building and forget there was a nuclear reactor under ground ... or at least that was what was understood by most. I now agree that it makes no sense to have reactors as described in this NY Times articles on university campuses due to security issues that we now recognise.

Thursday, August 12, 2004

:: Xinhuanet - English ::

:: Xinhuanet - English ::

Now this is interesting....

"Russian scientists said they have discovered the wreck of an alien device at the site of an unexplained explosion in Siberia almost a hundred years ago, China Daily reported today, citing the Interfax news agency as the source".

Monday, August 09, 2004

Overview to the Antivirus Defense-in-Depth Guide

Overview to the Antivirus Defense-in-Depth Guide

A welcome addition to the literature.

"The Antivirus Defense-in-Depth Guide provides an easy to understand overview of different types of malware, or malicious software, including information about the risks they pose, malware characteristics, means of replication, and payloads. The guide details considerations for planning and implementing a comprehensive antivirus defense for your organization, and provides information on defense-in-depth planning and related tools that you can use to help reduce your risk of infection. The final chapter of the guide provides a comprehensive methodology to help you quickly and effectively respond to and recover from malware outbreaks or incidents."

Sunday, August 08, 2004

Friday, July 23, 2004

Open Workbench is now Open Source

Open Workbench - Home

Now this is interesting. Niki has made their Project Workbench an open source product called Open Workbench. It's available to distribute freely. At first glance it appears to have all the important features of Microsoft Project but with a considerably smaller price tag. Project is one of Microsoft's most expensive components of their Office Suite. Open Workbench is free. Where is this heading?

Sunday, July 18, 2004

Sand as a Fluid medium - Granular Matter

Researchers at the University of Twente in the Netherlands have created an experiment that demonstrates how sand can exhibit liquid-like properties. They provide beautiful photos and a 1k-frame/sec movie of a marble-size steel ball dropping onto loose, fine sand. This may aid geophysicists in understanding what happens when an asteroid smashes into a planet.

This reminds me of attempts in the 1970's in graduate school and at my first job at a R&D organisation to use computers to model the flow of fluids. It was simple when we tried simple things--rivers and streams, waves in very deep water, hydraulic jumps, etc. Proved impossible for anything "complex". 99% of fluid flows are "complex". This movie helps me appreciate why.

Saturday, July 03, 2004

Learning about Lean

Learning about Lean

Joe Ely provides very insightful understanding of a practical (and personal) application of the Theory of Constraints as applied to the ubiuquitous long queue's at airport security checks.

Interestingly, while American security agents insist that their patrons remove their shoes before passing through the metal detectors, this does not seem to happen in Europe even though these passengers are entering the same airline "system".

Perhaps there is another perspective. Perhaps by addressing this issue from the perspective of risk as advocated by Bruce Schneir may result in something, e.g.

1. What asset are we trying to protect?
2. What are the risks to those assets?
3. How well does the secruity solution mitigate those risks?
4. What other risks does the security solution cause?
5. What costs and tradeoffs does the security solution impose?

Asking and answering these questions leads to some interesting conclusions.

Monday, June 28, 2004

The Dirty Bomb Distraction

The Dirty Bomb Distraction

Explains in a rational, logical, and mathematical (should you be so inclined to run the numbers) way why fear with the so-called "dirty" is fear itself.

Sunday, June 20, 2004

The 911 Commission has Perverted its Work -- One who was there speaks.

BuzzMachine... by Jeff Jarvis

"The 9/11 Commission has perverted its work and, in my view, committed the unpardonable sin of politicizing 9/11 and turning the attacks of mudering terrorist nutjobs into a litany of things we did wrong, things that are our fault.

No, 9/11 is the fault of murdering terrorist nutjobs and the only solution to this is to hunt down and capture or kill every one of them we can find wherever we find them -- yes, even in Saudi Arabia, even in Iraq, even in Pakistan, even in New Jersey. I wish I heard the Commission giving us a few more suggestions about how to do that."

Friday, June 18, 2004

Joel on Software - How Microsoft Lost the API War

Joel on Software - How Microsoft Lost the API War

"Microsoft's crown strategic jewel, the Windows API, is lost. The cornerstone of Microsoft's monopoly power and incredibly profitable Windows and Office franchises, which account for virtually all of Microsoft's income and covers up a huge array of unprofitable or marginally profitable product lines, the Windows API is no longer of much interest to developers. The goose that lays the golden eggs is not quite dead, but it does have a terminal disease, one that nobody noticed yet."

Thursday, June 17, 2004

Guardian | Oil chief: my fears for planet

Guardian | Oil chief: my fears for planet

"In an interview in today's Guardian Life section, Ron Oxburgh, chairman of Shell, says we urgently need to capture emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, which scientists think contribute to global warming, and store them underground - a technique called carbon sequestration."

Sunday, June 13, 2004

Microsoft Office Search: project 2003 deployment

Microsoft Office Search: project 2003 deployment

Microsoft provides a number of useful templates, in Microsoft Project format, for deploying Project and Project Server.

Saturday, June 12, 2004

UN Inspectors report WMD shippped out of Iraq before and during the war

WorldTribune.com

"The United Nations has determined that Saddam Hussein shipped weapons of mass destruction components as well as medium-range ballistic missiles before, during and after the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 2003."

Sunday, June 06, 2004

Sun Bloggers

See Sun Bloggers

Sun Microsystems is providing blog resources for "any Sun employee to write about anything."

That's interesting.

Dakota Indian tribal wisdom on project management (Anders Jacobsen's blog)

Dakota Indian tribal wisdom on project management (Anders Jacobsen's blog): "Dakota Indian tribal wisdom on project management

The tribal wisdoms of the Dakota Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says that 'when you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount'. However, in many companies as well as in the UN and NGO community a range of far more advanced strategies are often employed, such as:

1. Changing riders
2. Appointing a committee to study the horse
3. Arranging to visit other countries to see how others ride dead horses
4. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included
5. Reclassifying the dead horse as 'living impaired'.
6. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse
7. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase the speed
8. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse's performance
9. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's performance
10. Declaring that as the dead horse does not have to be fed, it is less costly, carries lower overhead, and therefore contributes substantially more to the mission of the organisation than do some other horses
11. Rewriting the expected performance requirements for all horses..."

How Could Blogging Fit into the Corporate World

I found occasion to write down initial thoughts on this for a friend which became an email. Seems more appropriate as a blog posting, so here it is. This will hopefully form the basis for subsequent thinking/blogging on this subject.

Demonstration of Valididay


See http://www.tompetersnew.com/. "The" Tom Peters of Managing for Excellence Fame as discovered blogs and has, according to his web site, "We've also become enamored of various blogs and blogging software, and so we said, "Let's bloggify Tom." I point out this site only to show the growing "acceptance" of this new wave.

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3734981.stm for the BBC news report of Bill Gates telling the executives who recently attended his party that "blogs are good for business". Again, another indication of the "wave".

Interestingly, there a many blogs now done by Microsoft employees. Truly something is happening in that corporation. For example, I like reading Bob Scoble's blog from http://radio.weblogs.com/0001011/. He seems to have taken (or given?) the role of bridging inside/outside Microsoft. Another Microsoft example is Eric Rudder http://msdn.microsoft.com/blogs/ericr/ who is near the top of Microsoft.

I like reading Joel on Software http://www.joelonsoftware.com/. Very eloquent writer. Ex Microsoft and now runs his own software firm in NYC. Their product CityDesk is attractive for this stuff.

I enjoy reading Andrew Sullivan http://www.andrewsullivan.com/, Instapundant http://www.instapundit.com/, Steven Johnson http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/, Belgravia Dispatch http://www.belgraviadispatch.blogspot.com/ and Jeff Jarvis http://www.buzzmachine.com/. Jerry Pournelle's http://www.jerrypournelle.com/mail/ is interesting as it really is a blog, but he's been doing this for years and years, before blogs became fashionable. He's a science fiction writer with work experience in the US aerospace programme, writing for Byte, etc.

Things to Notice about Blogs

- They provide links, and attribution, to the things they are talking about. You can go see for your self.
- They provide links to other sites/blogs/etc. of interest to them. This personifies the "web" as a network of related information. There the links are high quality since they are vetted by the person doing the publishing.
- They use specialised software which provides the "standard". Tools like Moveable Type, Blogger, etc. These tools support open standards, e.g. RSS (Really Simple Syndication). Most tools are free, or very low cost if for commercial purposes.

My blog, which I'm experimenting with, is at http://www.rmschneider.com/blogger/ It has been found by the search engines and gets a growing number of hits. Not very many. Not very interesting, but it's just something I'm experimenting with not to get hits or attention, but only to explore the work process one has to adopt to be a blog "contributor" vs. a blog "consumer".

The Tools

There are lots. Some ones I have experience with are:

- Movable Type (what I would probably implement in a company). http://movabletype.org/

- Blogger (what I use for my experimental blog). http://www.blogger.com/. Now owned by Google. Will be taken along for a significant "ride" with Google as they do their thing.

RSS Feeds

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is the catalyse for a lot of this taking off. The reader can "pull" RSS feeds from where they want. I use Newsgator (www.newgator.com) with Microsoft Outlook and I pull feeds from blogs of interest which greatly simplifies my work processes. In addition, I get feeds from traditional media, e.g. New York Times, Washington Post, etc.

I can't help but think that these simple tools are the way to forward. I'm less than enthralled with buying big "Knowledge Management" applications ... even though I know that's supposed to be what is supposed to happen in big corporations but I don't think it's the way to go. Keep it simple. Do it the way the world is doing it.


Corporate Environments


I haven't yet formulated my thoughts in a manner which can easily be written down. I'm bullish on "blogs". This is based on my previous experience over many years of similar sorts of things inside my previous employer. My first exposure to a lot of this sort of stuff was in the mid 1980's with IBM's "GroupTalk" product (used in the engineering organsition to a very limited extent), and the Internet's newsgroups and mailing lists (used in the corporate research organisation to a relatively large extent even though it was before the Internet was known as "the Internet".

Accordingly, it is arguable that what's happening today with blogs is not new. True. However, for a generation of people they are new and it is the way the new generation works and expects to work. It isn't going way.


I've decided I'm going to start to write something down, and maybe even "blog" it so that you and anyone else can watch the thoughts grow. It will center around my "Noise to Knowledge" theory (see below).

As a starting point see:

Sharing knowledge in organisations through blogging?
By Jonathan Briggs http://www.reengage.org/go/Article_222.html

5 Blognet Justifications http://www.dijest.com/aka/categories/projectManagement/ Other articles at this page are also good reading. **NOTE: These 5 justifications hit at the heart of your question.**

Publishing a Project Web Log, by Jon Udell http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/03/28/13stratdev_1.html. Jon has been long involved with this and even wrote a seminal book on this which was "before it's time" http://press.oreilly.com/pub/pr/885. The technology has moved on, but the knowledge processes Jon describes in this book are very valid.

Chad Dickerson takes on using blogs for IT (project?) documentation ... something that should be of great value and I think his ideas are on mark. http://www.infoworld.com/article/04/02/27/09OPconnection_1.html

This page http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/ provides links to some blogs. I just discovered this researching the email to you. I’m going to do some further reading here. IT-related, but just translate to your own environment.

Noise to Knowledge

Finally, see http://www.rmschneider.com/writing/Noise2Knowledge.html where I have briefly outlined what I really think about all this from a higher level perspective. Basically, I feel there are three identifiable clumps of information in the knowledge workers world:

1. noise,
2. learnings, and
3. knowledge.

Whatever work processes or tools are used, all three "clumps@ tneed to be handled with supurb tools. I believe that those organisations that can provide world class tools and nurture world class work processes supporting all three distinct "clumps" of information as it moves between "noise to knowledge" will become and continue thereafter to be world-class organisations.

Email is dead. Long live email.

Thursday, June 03, 2004

OpenOffice.Org is Starting Development of a Project Management Tool

oopm: Home

This could be significant. They are in the intial phases and are inviting discussion on the mailing lists.

Participate if you have input in this grass-roots project.

Wednesday, June 02, 2004

Problem with Blogger Email Publishing

I set my blog on Blogger to enable publishing via email (nice feature). Works great. I like it.

However, I received an erroneous message from their mail server saying that the mail was undeliverable ... yet, the mail that the server says is undeliverable was indeed published. I reported this to Blogger Support.

Their reply:

Thank you for writing in and reporting this problem. You might want to try changing the secret word in your mail-to-blogger address to see if your problem continues.

Please see our Blogger Help article for more details:
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=135&topic=38



When Everyone Knows the Combination to the Lock

During the height of the Cold War, the US Strategic Air Command installed special locks, called "Permissive Action Links" on the Minuteman missle force.

Because the SAC were less concerned about unauthorised launches than they were about the poential for these locks to interfere with the implementation of wartime launch ordres, they changed the combinations for all these locks to be "00000000" which remained unchanged through the Cold War.

See http://www.cdi.org/blair/permissive-action-links.cfm.

Who's afraid of Time Inc.'s legal disclaimer?

E-mail Confidential - Who's afraid of Time Inc.'s legal disclaimer? By Jack Shafer

We have all seen them, or maybe even are required by our employers to put them at the bottom of all our corporate email. You know--those "disclaimers". Jack Shafer at Slate decided take on Time Warner ask a lawyer to pick his way through the text. He explains how, as you probably already know, that such disclaimers hold scant legal weight for many reasons, the most significant being that they always seem to be at the bottom of the email when it's really too late to agree to it before actually reading the email in question. Sort of like software shrink-wrap license agreements.

Where are all the British blogs?

The Raw Story | James Clasper | Where are all the British blogs?

"Yet, why on earth would anyone want an intellectual diet consisting solely of the self-righteous platitudes of The Guardian and The Independent or the right-wing bromides of The Daily Telegraph and The Times, to say nothing of the BBC’s condescension or the titillating trash of cable and satellite news?"

Sort of says it all, doesn't ?

Tuesday, June 01, 2004

Robert Scoble

I like to read Robert Scoble's weblog on Microsoft. He's inside the company and apparently has relatively free reign to write openly about what he thinks.

For example, here he attemps to destroy myths about Microsoft Internet Explorer and conformance to standards, with the killer line: "Syndication is where the action is", i.e. not the browser.

He also has interesting thoughts on linking.

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

Risk of Jets Flying Near Nuclear Power Plants

New Scientist

The Torness nuclear reactor is relatively close (within 20 miles or so ) of our family home. Therefore this article is of interest, especially since they mention an incident in April 2003 where a jet flew so close to these reactors that intruder alarms were activated.

However ... I wonder the actual probability of a jet aircraft actually hitting a particular spot--the spot being a nuclear power plant. They rarely crash. Yes, it happens. I fully support efforts to enforce "no-fly" zones around nuclear reactors, but I can't help but think that occasional breaches of this policy are not as important to manage than other risks associated with nuclear power plants.

PayPal and Online payments noticed by The Economist Magazine

The Economist has noticed PayPal. See Economist.com | Online payments

"ONE of the most powerful forces in e-commerce is the “network effect”: the more people who flock to a particular website, the greater its appeal. The latest beneficiary of this phenomenon is PayPal, which now handles online payments at an annualised rate of more than $17 billion. PayPal is not a bank, but for online buyers and sellers it performs much the same function. It already has 45m account-holders worldwide, one-quarter of the number of the mighty Citigroup."

We are hoping to use PayPal for Scottish Oil Club Bookings.

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

How to Speed-Read the Net

How to Speed-Read the Net

Intersting article at MSN, including a list of favourite RSS feeds that can be imported into a RSS Reader. We use Newsgator here.

Organise your life the Downing Street way

BBC NEWS | Magazine | Organise your life the Downing St way

I like this article. It explains the essentials of Time Management and how Tony Blair's Government used the "grid"

The Grid is a weekly diary, filled with all sorts of forthcoming events so that all arms of the government can know what everyone else has planned, and therefore what are good or bad days to plan anything else.


The article goes on to provide guidance from David Allen, author of: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress Free Productivity

The first thing to grasp is that organising yourself is not rocket science, says David Allen, author of The Art of Stress Free Productivity.

"Sure it's a discipline to fill in something like this, but it's a discipline in the same way that taking a shower is.

Whatever you do, write it down says Allen
"Once you get used to it, you have no trouble living that way."

The key is getting into the habit of at least once a week reviewing "every single loose end, every single commitment" to think about what you need to do. You should also review the last two weeks to see everything you might have missed. "That can trigger thoughts - oh that reminds me I ought to do so-and-so," he says.

Download details: Threat Modeling Tool

Interesting tool from Microsoft, released yesterday for free download.

Download details: Threat Modeling Tool: "The Threat Modeling Tool allows users to create threat model documents for applications. It organizes relevant data points, such as entry points, assets, trust levels, data flow diagrams, threats, threat trees, and vulnerabilities into an easy-to-use tree-based view. The tool saves the document as XML, and will export to HTML and MHT using the included XSLTs, or a custom transform supplied by the user.

The Threat Modeling Tool was built by Microsoft Security Software Engineer Frank Swiderski, the author of Threat Modeling (Microsoft Press, June 2004)."


Update 25 May 11:55: Been trying all morning, but can't download...

Monday, May 24, 2004

Blogger Help : What is BlogThis! ?

Blogger Help : What is BlogThis! ?

Blogger provides an easy tool for adding a comment to a Blogger blog. Will give this a try...

Security Tradeoffs

Bruce Schneier writes http://news.com.com/2010-7348-5204924.html?tag=nefd.gutspro that we need to weigh the costs vs. the benefits of measures taken to ensure our security.

"Much of what is being proposed as national security is a bad security trade-off. It's not worth it, and as consumers we're getting ripped off."


Subscribe to Mr. Schneir's newsletter Crypto-gram at http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram.html.

The Internet Arrives In Virgin Territory

The BBC writes about how the Internet arrived to a remote island in the Maldives. Is this a good thing?

Project Communication with Blogs

Chad Dickerson of Infoworld has written an article Blogging Behind the Firewall. He writes how, in very short order, using bloggs (based on Movable Type). He details the tangible benefits seen by his organisation as they have begun to reach a critical mass of contributors.

Some unexpected benefits:


"First, it forced the team to strategically organize its IT initiatives into a coherent roadmap fit for broader internal consumption. Next, it created a sense of accountability for these initiatives within the IT team because we had collectively agreed on the initiatives and documented the process. Finally, posting our plan for the entire company to see helped foster a sense of accountability to our non-IT colleagues within the company.


They also are seeing improvements in internal technical documentation.

Sunday, May 23, 2004

Fascinating "Test" of Knowledge for Theory of Constraints

I recently ran across this web site which is a very realistic test of knowledge of Goldratt's Theory of Constraints. A Case Study of a small manufacturing company called Case Coil Limited. The "manager" of Case Coil has tried to cut costs and increase sales but despite all efforts, costs are increasing and margins are not sufficient. The case asks you to evaluate the situation and recommend a solution. Recommended.

SpamAssassin Starting to Let Noticeably More Spam Through

I have been using SpamAssassin for a few years. Until recently it caught almost all spam. Starting within the last few weeks, more spam is leaking through.

The good news is that of what leaks through, Outlook 2003 spam filters seem to recognise it and moves the mail into my "junk" folder in Outlook. As the "junk" folder exists as a file on the mail server I am running SpamAssassin's Bayesian learning program, spam-learn; however, the onslaught continues.

The spammers are clearly getting more cleaver in how they consruct their mail to slip through the nets.

Sunday, May 16, 2004

Here's something Interesting. TrafficCam in Tehran

Now you can watch traffic conditions in Tehran. File in "Interesting..."

Update 23 May: The images don't seem to refesh. The same traffic photos are displayed days at a time. Guess not a real site. Just something found "on the web".

Monday, May 10, 2004

Blogger has changed!

The changes Blogger has made are impressive. This is the the tool to use.

Monday, May 03, 2004

Is Blogger the way to go?

This is my first entry with Blogger. I have been watching the Blog software for quite some time, and I think it now appropriate to get started.

I considered Movable Type ... it's great. I like how it looks, how it works, and and optimistic about its future. However configuration and installation is not simple and its license does not allow free use for comercial sites.

I considered CityDesk ... it's also great. The demo version is surprisingly un-restrictive and permits up to 50 postings. However, it is relatively expensive and really better suited/applicable for teams of people.

I've settled on Blogger and will use it for the time being. I'm still tweaking the template, so please bear with me on that.